


Green But Not Stupid

by cricket_aria



Category: Knives Out (2019)
Genre: Aftermath of a Case, Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-11
Updated: 2019-12-11
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:26:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21753709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cricket_aria/pseuds/cricket_aria
Summary: Marta has a deal to offer Ransom.
Comments: 13
Kudos: 312
Collections: Writing Rainbow Green





	Green But Not Stupid

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BiffElderberry](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BiffElderberry/gifts).



When they told him he had a visitor, Ransom assumed it had to be his pop. Richard was the only one who ever stopped in, apart from one visit from Walt that had been blatantly all about the chance to sneer at the sight of him in an orange jumpsuit.

God, he was glad that at least he’d had the chance to tell the lot of them to eat shit before everything went to hell. Might not have been the sweet lead-in to his single-handedly saving his inheritance, _all_ of their inheritances, that he’d expected, but it was a memory that kept him warm at night now that it had all fallen through his hands.

When they lead him to a private room his thoughts shifted to maybe his ma had finally decided she had something she wanted to say to him, because with the divorce unfolding, and Linda’s iron-clad prenup doing its work on how their respective finances were shaping up, Richard sure as fuck didn’t have the clout to pull that off. Ransom hadn’t seen her once since walking past her on the way to the patrol car the day he was arrested, hadn’t even had so much as a phone call to say she remembered he existed, so some people would say it was about time. Ransom had always kinda suspected, though, that when folks said that after you had kids they became the most important people in the world to you that it wasn’t true in her case, and this all had made him realize he was right. 

She’d loved Harlan more than she’d ever loved him, even with what the old codger had done to all of them, and Ransom didn’t expect her to ever forgive him for what he’d tried to do. Didn’t even matter that for once in his life he’d actually been trying to work in the family’s best interests.

The one person Ransom _never_ would have expected to see in that room, not if he had a million years to guess, was prim little Marta Cabrera. She was sitting at a table with Harlan’s go board before her, stones neatly tucked into their pouches. “Hello, Ransom,” she greeted him, as calmly as if he hadn’t tried to jam a knife into her heart the last time he’d seen her.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” he asked her as he was lead across the room. Then, as the guard shackled his legs to a chair that was bolted to the floor in front of her, but bafflingly left his arms free, repeated to him, “What the fuck is she doing her? Does whatever shit-for-brains is in charge of lining up visits not know why this is a fucking stupid thing to okay? Pretty sure this isn’t what anyone means when they say I have the right to face my accuser.” Even more confusing was that, after ignoring Ransom completely as he checked the shackles, the guard just walked out of the room, though Ransom was sure he had to be right outside the door and there were cameras trained on them from every angle. “Do these idiots not realize I almost stabbed you the last time I saw you? What’s to stop me from braining you with that fucking board?” he asked, to the air itself more than her directly.

“Well, you are chained to a chair,” she said as if that guaranteed her perfect safety, though even as she spoke she was nudging the table and her own chair slightly closer to place the board in easy reach for him, “and I am very rich now. Enough that they are willing to make accommodations when I ask for a chance to be alone with the man who tried to kill me.”

He glared into her big doe eyes, at the slight smile on her face, and snorted. “You’re fucking trying to rub that in, aren’t you? Don’t even try bullshitting me, I’ve spent my life around a bunch of dicks who’re always trying to talk around getting one up on each other. Hold onto our money long enough and you might even learn to get subtle about it.”

“You should know that I couldn’t try to bullshit anyone if I wanted to,” she said, which he noted was not a denial. “Maybe I should apologize for how my last attempt at doing so went. I didn’t expect you to grandstand in my face for _quite_ that long.”

“That what this is?” he asked, gesturing at the board across from him. “Offering up a ‘sorry for ralphing on your face’ game to take my mind off rotting in jail for a while? Pretty sure most folks would say when a guy tries to murder you he loses any apologies.”

“I am trying to be polite, Ransom, which will be difficult if you keep bringing that up,” she told him, just the tiniest hint of steel entering her tone. Which was pretty ridiculous in his opinion, since it continued to be an insane thing for her to be ignoring. “I had a reason to want to speak with you, and thought this would be a good way to pass the time while we do so. I miss the games Harlan and I would have at night, and you’re the only other person I know who plays.” Though the same polite smile was still neatly plastered across her lips there was something in her eyes as she mentioned his grandfather that said plainly that, no, regardless of how she was acting she had not for a moment forgotten or forgiven what he’d done.

“Alright,” he said as he reached out to grab the bag of black stones, curious to see where this was going to lead. “I’ll take first move, if that’s fine with you.”

“Are you sure? It hasn’t worked out so well for you in the past,” she told him tartly, but pulled the other bag to herself.

“For such a ‘good person’ you can be an asshole when you want to, you know that?” he asked her, and, because he could be as well, he tossed the first stone down into the bottom-left corner, figuring that Harlan had given her the same talk about the traditions of the game that Ransom himself had gotten once upon a time.

“Mr. Blanc was very kind in the way he described me, but your family does try my ability to be good, a little,” she admitted as she took the opposite corner. “I don’t know if you’ll be happy to hear that I am trying to be kind to them, as well as I can without their taking advantage.”

“Really? My old man seems to think you’re taking care of Meg, and throwing the rest a couple bones.”

“’As well I can’,” she repeated. “Of course it looks as if Meg gets the most, she needs to finish her last year at school. But I have also taken over nursing your great-grandmother, so she doesn’t need to go through the trauma of a move at her age. And I’ve allowed Joni to move into the mansion as well until she rearranges her finances, provided that she care for Wanetta when I’m not there. There are many more security cameras in the house now, to make sure that she does, and doesn’t get back into the bad habit of taking what isn’t hers.”

Ransom snickered, as he considered whether it was time to start going on the offensive against the territory she was building. “You’re never fucking getting rid of her, you know that right? You can say it’s just while she’s getting back on her feet as much as you want, she will dig in like a god-damned tick.”

“Oh, I think she will quickly find her way out again if your mother will ever agree to a price for purchasing the house from me. If you speak to her, could you _please_ try to say something about how stubborn she’s being? I am trying very hard to offer her a price well below what it’s worth to let her take it back into your family, but the amount she wants to get away with paying wouldn’t even cover a year of rent in my family’s old apartment. And it wasn’t a terribly expensive apartment, Ransom, you’ve seen the building.”

“Yeah, don’t think I’m gonna have much sympathy for you trying to sell _our own house_ back to us there. And Ma doesn’t have a word to say to me these days, so if you’re just here to try to sweeten her up through me you’re barking up the wrong tree.”

“No. That’s not it.” She frowned slightly, seeming to consider how she wanted to phrase whatever she’d shown up to talk about, but her moves on the board remained swift and decisive even in her distraction. “You remember the issues with my family?” she said finally, and he knew both that she was trying to word things so she wouldn’t give the men behind the cameras anything they might toss off for investigation, and that she was handing him a weapon she knew he could easily use if he just clarified loudly exactly what she meant.

“Yeah, I do,” he said instead, because shit, whatever, her mom hadn’t had anything to do with her daughter snatching his inheritance. Wouldn’t be much point anyway, she was rich enough now to pay off anyone that might try to raise a fuss.

“Walt suggested that a good lawyer would be able to fix everything, but I have no idea how to find one. Your family are the only people I know who I could ask, except that I could hardly trust anything they might tell me now. So I have a deal for you, instead.” She leaned forward over the board, her hand falling still for just a moment, her voice lowering. “Give me two names, Ransom. One who you think will be good for what I need, and one who will be good for you. I will hire them both, if when I look into the one you chose for me it seems like you were giving an honest recommendation. I came in planning to point out that I could afford a better one than Linda can, but from what you’ve just said it seems more important that I could afford a _far_ better on than Richard can.”

He narrowed his eyes at her, tapping his next stone against the side of the table as he considered the offered deal. “Why the hell should I trust you on this? You might want to think you’re a nice person, but I’m pretty sure you aren’t nice enough to help someone walk for the murder of a friend.”

She had the gall to laugh brightly at that, as if he were making a wonderful joke. “Oh, Ransom,” she said, annoyingly gently, “How could you possibly be found innocent? Name the most incredible attorney you can think of and I still don’t believe that would happen. But they might be able to find a way to argue murder down to manslaughter, or convince the jury down to a sentence that will one day let you be free again. I’ll accept that as a trade.”

She was right, he supposed. Too much to hope for anything more with the way that things had gone down. And Richard couldn’t afford shit in the way of helping him, not like Marta now could. He named two names. “The one for you might not be the best for what you need, but she’ll point you to whoever you _will_ want instead of trying to keep that money for herself by taking you on anyway. Not like there’s any fucking reason I’d ever have experience to give you exactly what you’re looking for.”

“That will do. Thank you, Ransom,” she told him, and for just a moment her smile looked almost as friendly as it had the few times she’d managed to work one up around all the stress in the brief time he’d successfully made her see him as an ally.

And then she proceeded to devastate the territory he’d built for himself on the board in shockingly few moves. Ransom supposed he would have to get used to that being the nature of their relationship.


End file.
